


Warm

by LadyBraken



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: (sorry), Angst, Incineration, Insanity, Nightmares, Suicidal Thoughts, lead poisonning, liberal use of roasting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 15:03:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19976038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBraken/pseuds/LadyBraken
Summary: They would bruise. Their limbs fall apart. Walking walking and walking until they fell in pain on the ice, on the rocks. Until they would fade in the icy wind. They wouldn’t be saved--they weren't special. They weren’t chosen, they weren’t protected by a god, by a will. They would fade into nothing.Stanley just wanted to be warm.





	Warm

_ Lead _ . 

It was this only word that echoed inside Stanley’s head like a cannon in mid-siege. He knew what was going to happen. He knew it with the clarity of a well-sketched anatomical diagram and the certainty of scientific calculation.

First, the mark on the gums. He took a deep breath.

Then, pains, headaches. There was something like a siren in his brain. 

Loss of sight, speech. Maybe it was his own voice? 

Hallucinations, confusion. They would starve because they wouldn’t be coherent enough to find food. They would go insane. Feral. Evil on their minds and blood splattered on the ice. Barely men anymore. 

Stanley laid down in his cot. He closed his eyes. 

His own voice still rang in his ears. Maybe it was the ice pressing in on every side like a hungry coffin. Maybe it was the wood creaking from the frost. Maybe it was the screams of the man that died--that would die. 

He didn’t sleep. Or maybe he did. 

Now the nightmare was on the two sides of his eyelids. 

He watched Hickey’s punishment get delivered with no care. All the crew gathered. Stares. They stared, ravenous. But when he looked around, the faces that all stared--at him--he saw his own face. 

For the first time, Stanley became scared. 

Stanley stood from his cot. Their wounds would not heal - his wounds won’t heal. 

He turned towards the wall. He saw his daughter. She was standing here, in front of him, in her pretty dress he had bought her for her birthday. In the middle of the arctic, dressed for English summer, like a toothy joke. 

Next to her, was a man. And a woman, and others, they all stepped forwards, naked. A Y on their chest. A boy - that one he recognised.  _ I’m sure the captain will appreciate your loyalty as he buries you _ . Young. The boy had been goulish while living, now,  _ now-- _

Was this a punishment for his sins? He had lived a crimeless life. Almost. No limits, in his science, in his mind. Some files  _ bodies _ were better left sealed. 

The boy hadn’t wanted to be cut open. 

“It was needed!” he shouted to the corpse, to the void. But was it? What did it matter, in the end. What would it matter when they would all die of poison and starvation in the end?

He had come here to do good. But one cannot leave what’s behind. This fate - he had designed it. Every man here had designed it, and they couldn’t undo what was done. He was a doctor. These men were his responsibility. 

It hurts.  _ It hurts.  _

Stanley ran to his basin. He splattered water on his face and dried it out quickly. 

They would bruise. Their limbs fall apart. Walking walking and walking until they fell in pain on the ice, on the rocks. Until they would fade in the icy wind. They wouldn’t be saved--they weren't special. They weren’t chosen, they weren’t protected by a god, by a will. They would fade into nothing. 

Stanley just wanted to be warm. His breath was sobbing, his eyes tearless. Not alive, not safe. Just--just warm. One last time. Beyond all hope, he cling to one prayer: that he would soon pass out  _ die die die  _ and be spared. 

When he looked at himself in the mirror, he was dressed as a clown. It was him, yet it wasn’t, it was his face, but, oh, that cold, _ cold _ face… That creature of the deep that lived inside his stomach. Even from under the clothes, he could feel the bloody pattern of the scalpel on the chest - already dead, staring,  _ staring _ . 

It was dead--it was death. 

Stanley startled in fear when the thought hit his heart. The clown grabbed him by the air - fingers digging into his scalp. It pushed his head in the water. 

When he awoke, he was coughing and heaving. His heart--beating in his skull, the echoes of unpronounced screams hanging in the air. His clothes were drenched. He knew it was no dream, of course.

He was a rational man. 

The smell hit him--oil. Gasoline. 

In front of him was the man, staring, staring. drenched too--almost bloated like a corpse that had passed too much time in water. A match in hand. No words spoken. A motive, a clear plan. 

Stanley felt eyes on him. The men, the doomed, doomed men--

It stared, and tilted its head in question. 

It hurt,  _ it hurt _ . But the small fire at the end of the match--it felt so warm on their fingers. 

Stanley concluded with the verdict. It was what it would take to clean himself. To clean them all. He opened his arms to embrace the dead man like one would an old friend. It was what they were, wasn’t it?

Inferno rose. Burnt skin in the air, screams. Then, the pain. Stop it,  _ Stop it.  _ It hurt! Smoke filled his lungs as he breathed in despair. A one way journey, no hope, no prayer. He could hear the other man--chuckling. 

Chuckling from his own melting mouth. 

When he looked down, his body was just there. Eyes melted on his cheeks, skin blackened. 

Staring. 

He was cold,  _ so cold-- _

Glaring. 


End file.
